Current Edition
From the Fields: Beets ahead, beans behind schedule
<i>Originally published in the June 26, 2009, print edition.</i>
Spending a relaxing day at the lake is an ideal spot for many Minnesotans, and that is exactly where Derald Madden was when The Land caught up with him on Father’s Day. While he was relaxing at Lake Shetek on June 21, the farm has indeed kept Madden one busy guy.
In the past few weeks, “all together it rained 1 3/4 inches,” he said; it has been “drizzly and overcast for the last couple weeks.” While that slowed the spraying for him, he and his son Shaun managed to get the beets and corn all sprayed. He said beets canopied on June 18 and corn canopied on June 19.
“Beets are a little ahead of schedule,” he said. With seven years of growing beets, this is the “earliest I have seen it.” While beets are ahead, “beans are just a tad bit behind. ... I think they (beets) like the cooler days. ... We got nice moisture. We even got a touch of hail on Wednesday (June 17),” but thankfully no damage to the crop.
As for weeds, Madden believes you need to “catch ’em fast and early.” He was not as concerned about getting the beans done, however, because they are not canopied yet.
Derald and Shaun plan on getting all the remaining beans sprayed this week. They will start putting fungicide down on the beets around July 4. Once that is done comes the preparations for the fall harvest.
Madden likes to get the combines out and checked to make sure all is set for the fall. Doing those things now gives Madden the assurance that when the combines need to roll out for harvest they are ready to go.
“We are sitting as nice as we can ask for, for this given time,” he said. The warmer days forecasted will only help his crop continue to grow and hopefully keep this a “pretty uneventful season.”
Uneventful can be a great thing in farming.
- Current Edition
-
-
Residual value — How much is field trash worth?
Maybe we need to think more positively about trash. We’re talking trash as residue left on fields after harvest, or any time as a matter of fact. Does it have value?
-
Back Roads: Quiet on the set; eat!: Ding-Dong Café, Sauk Centre
When the trains pulled up their tracks, many of the businesses along them closed their doors. The Ding-Dong Café, in Sauk Centre, covered its walls in train memorabilia and kept right on serving.
-
Better machinery makes continuous corn work
Equipment industry has responded to the movement toward more conservation tillage.
-
No-till benefits add up with diesel fuel savings
Less field time, virtually zero erosion, improved soil quality and as good or better yields are four solid reasons for considering no-till (including strip till and ridge till) farming.
-
Opinions differ on if, when rolling fields is right
The question keeps surfacing: Is rolling my fields sensible? And, if so, when do I roll?
-
Land Minds: Bumps on the road to liberty
I sense we are becoming a nation of entitlements. And in the process of this slide into socialism, I sense that we can no longer rely upon the “political process” to reverse this uncomfortable transition. “What’s in it for me?” seems to be the new mantra now embraced by many people including our elected officials.
-
Farm and Food File: USDA-DOJ seed competition workshop better work
Holding the “first joint Department of Justice/USDA workshops ever on competition and regulatory issues” in Iowa, the heart of corn and soybean country, just weeks before every seed-buying farmer in America will be pedal-to-the-metal planting this year’s crop is bigger than Daytona, bigger than the All Star game and bigger than the Super Bowl.
-
Cover story: The legacy of Wendelin Grimm and his 'everlasting clover'
Grimm was the farmer who developed winter-hardy alfalfa, which after his death became known as Grimm alfalfa. It helped make Carver County a premier dairy belt, and became the basis of the alfalfa used throughout Minnesota, and across wintry North America.
-
Heatherow Farm still going 160 years, four generations later
They homesteaded 120 acres, not realizing that over 160 years later one of their fourth-generation descendants would own that land.
-
Minnesota Machinery Museum breathes life into past
After using grant funds to make necessary improvements, the Yellow Medicine Agricultural and Transportation Museum opened Aug. 9, 1980, during the Pioneer Power Threshing Show. Under the guidance of Minnesota Historical Society Field Service Coordinator David Nystuen, the six-acre site found new life, and soon the name was changed to the Minnesota Machinery Museum.
- More Current Edition Headlines
-
